The BBC One baking show has been snapped up by Channel 4 in a deal reportedly worth around £75 (€84) million.

The chief content officer of the on-demand streaming and video service, Ted Sarandos, has hinted they may have not had their eye on the proverbial dough ball enough.

"We knew it was brewing, but I didn't actually think it would happen," he told the Radio Times, replying 'Yes, yes' when asked if he thought they had been "slow off the mark".

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A more successful bid for them was the acquisition of Charlie Brooker's drama, Black Mirror, from Channel 4.

The third series of the gritty dystopian show has already premiered on Netflix, and boasts a host of big Hollywood names such as Game Of Thrones actor Jerome Flynn, Belle actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Star Trek Into Darkness actress Alice Eve.

Following news of the show's move to Netflix, Channel 4's chief creative officer Jay Hunt said in a statement that the show "couldn't be a more Channel 4 show", adding: "We grew it from a dangerous idea to a brand that resonated globally."

Commenting on the controversy, Sarandos said the show's creator, Brooker, would not take kindly to the suggestion that its previous broadcast owners were behind its success.

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He said: "I think Charlie Brooker would take great exception to the notion that they developed the show.

"That is the work of Charlie Brooker, who is a brilliant television creator, and the ambitions that he and (executive producer) Annabel Jones had for the new season were... seemingly out of reach or beyond the appetite that Channel 4 had for the show. So they cancelled it. And we picked it up."

The media mogul praised the BBC for its job in "cultivating great talent" and also for "telling very British stories that a decade ago were almost impossible to get produced."